HASS News

Anzac Centenary Crosses

John XXIII College students wrote messages on 1500 crosses and more than 300 of these crosses were displayed during the Anzac Assembly. This number represents the proportion of the entire student body that would not have returned from Gallipoli.

The concept for this cross project originated in late 2010, when a group of individuals based in Australia and Britain sought to pay their respects to those who had died while on active service, by placing a small wooden cross on war graves across the former Western Front battlefields of Belgium and France.

The Australian War Memorial is broadening this initiative over the Centenary years, 2014 - 2018. It plans to draw on the commemorative experiences of schoolchildren by capturing, in the students' own words, their individual reflections on those Australians who have sacrificed their lives in war and other conflicts. The crosses of the John XXIII students , which the Memorial will arrange to be laid throughout the Centenary period on war graves and memorials where Australian servicemen and women are buried in countries such as Turkey, France, Belgium, Malaysia, Singapore, Greece, South Africa and the Middle East.

Our QR codes featured in the College Anzac Assembly held yesterday. Our guest veterans, Major John Liston and Paul de Pierres, enjoyed scanning some of the codes to find out about our soldiers.

This week's soldier is Captain Ferdinand George Medcalf, an Anzac from Western Australian, who was researched by Rachel Tang and Haruki Okabe.